Enantioselective determination of chlorpheniramine in various formulations by HPLC using carboxymethyl-β-cyclodextrin as a chiral additive

A chiral mobile phase HPLC method is described for chiral separation and determination of chlorpheniramine (CP) enantiomers in various commercial preparations. Chromatographic separation was achieved on a conventional ODS column with a mixture of aqueous sodium phosphate (5 mM) containing 0.5 mM carboxymethyl-beta-cyclodextrin, methanol and triethylamine (73:25:2, v/v/v, pH 4.3) as the mobile phase. The flow rate of isocratic elution was 0.24 mL/min and peaks were detected at 224 nm. The method was applied to nine commercial CP preparations in six dosage forms and CP enantiomers were well separated without any disturbance of other ingredients or impurities present. The results showed that only one preparation was d-CP and the others were dl-CP preparations. The contents of all the preparations were found to be in the range of 97%-104% of labeled contents. This method was economical and convenient, affording sufficient accuracy, precision and reproducibility, as well as sensitivity and selectivity.